Air cleaner



Oct. 12, 1943. c, JACOBS ET AL 2,331,693

AIR CLEANER Filed June 13, 1939 INVENTORS CLARENCE I'LJACOBS BY ALFRED ZECH o- 77.444?- ATTORNEY Patented Oct. 12, 1943 AIR CLEANER Clarence E. Jacobs and Alfred Zech, Detroit,

Mich., assignors to Industrial Wire Cloth Products Company, Wayne, Mich, a corporation of Michigan Application June 13, 1939, Serial No. 278,927

2 Claims.

The present invention relates to air cleaners for the intake pipes of internal combustion engines or other machines or devices inspirating air.

One of the conventional types of air cleaners in common use consists generally in a housing containing means for causing the air to strike extended oily surfaces, and the means, in several forms, consists of a porous mass of fine flattened wires which has been dipped in oil and drained. The wire mass divides the air stream into fine portions and causes these to take tortuous paths so that its contact with the oily surfaces is more intimate.

One form of such a filter unit is shown in the patent to Jacobs 2,047,634 dated July 14, 1936. In this patent, the unit is shown to be in the form of a ring made by winding a plurality of strands of flattened crinkled wire upon a suitable form.

With this and other forms of filter unit, it has been found that the cleaning emciency depends to a great degree upon the amount of oil capable of being retained by the unit after draining.

Among the objects of the present invention, therefore, is to greatly increase the oil-retaining ability of such units.

Another objects of the invention is to eliminate substantially the tendency of the crinkled wire, when being wound upon the form, to have the strands nest together and thereby enlarge some of the air passages and produce what is called pip ng-n Other objects will readily occur to those skilled in the art upon reference to the following description and the accompanying drawing, in which:

Figure 1 is a perspective view of a filter unit involving the present invention.

Figure 2 is an enlarged view of a portion of one of the strands of wire.

Figure 3 is a similar view at right angles to Figure 2.

Referring now to the drawing:

Figure 1 shows, by way of illustration, a filter unit of the type in which a plurality of strands of crinkled wire are wound upon a suitable core (not shown) which remains in the unit or upon a suitable mandrel later withdrawnin either case the strands lie longitudinally of the cylindrical unit. Or the same type of unit may be formed by winding several strands of wire spooliashion upon an inner foraminated support and an outer support sheet applied.

Whichever method of winding is used, a foraminated support element will be placed inside the cylinder and another outside.

In Figure l, the inner support element is indicated at it, the outside element at H, and the wound wire at I2.

In Figures 2 and 3 are shown two views of the improved form of wire and indicating the method of making.

In producing the form of wire shown, a suitable wire is passed between rolls, in effect loosely meshing gears, to give the wire the form shown in plan in Figure 3.

When the wire has thus been evenly bent, it is passed through smooth rolls to flatten it in the plane of the curves previously made.

After being thus flattened, it is passed through special rolls to produce the crinkled form shown in Figure 2.

In this figure, it will be noted, the wire is given a plurality of relatively long radius curves l5 followed by a series of short angular bends IS, in a plane at substantially right angles to the plane of the flattened wire.

By providing the wire used in such units with non-uniform corrugations such, for example, as are shown herein, the nesting of adjacent strands and consequent close grouping of wires is substantially completely eliminated and along with it the piping or formation of large passages through the matted wire.

Further, the kinking or bending of the wire into very small angular pockets or corners provides a 'capillarity much greater than in known forms of filters so that its oil holding capacity is greatly increased.

Now having described the invention and the preferred form of embodiment thereof, what is claimed is:

1. Crinkled flattened wire for use in filter units, said wire showing alternating groups of relatively large rounded corrugations and relatively small sharply angular corrugations in the same plane with uniform corrugations in a different plane.

2. Crinkled flattened wire for use in filter units, said wire showing spaced groups of sharply angular corrugations in the plane of the wire, with rounded corrugations between such groups, and uniform relatively large corrugations in a plane at right angles to the plane of the wire.

CLARENCE E. JACOBS. ALFRED ZECH. 

